Red Sky

by Chris Goff

  “Then we rule him out. Who else?”

  “The DSS director knew.”

  “Apprehending Zhen was their mission. Why would he sabotage his own operation? What about the CIA?”

  “I thought that, too. The political officer at the consulate knew. He’s possible CIA.” She jerked her head toward the VW. “Charlie’s likely an asset.”

  “Do you think the PO’s chief of station?”

  “It’s what I was told.”

  Jordan ran the toe of her shoe along a crack in the cement. It was like the dividing line in a group of variables. “The PO helped negotiate Zhen’s release from jail. RSO Todd and Detective Yang knew McClasky was coming, but I’m confident we can rule them out. Then there’s whoever handled the prisoner swap inside the jail, whoever McClasky might have told, and the Triad’s involvement. We have too many unknowns.”

  “There has to be a way to narrow it down. How do you think the prisoner swap happened?”

  Jordan told him about the sting operation.

  “Damn. That cracks the suspect pool wide open.”

  “Of course, you don’t know any of this,” she reminded him. “Any splashy headlines would end my career. Besides, I think the longer we keep all this under wraps, the better.”

  “Based on your reception in Guangzhou, it seems somebody has gotten the word.”

  “Either that or someone doesn’t want me uncovering Zhen’s secrets. For all we know, he could have staged his own death to avoid an indictment for espionage.”

  She heard tires squealing on pavement as a car turned into the garage. She whipped her head around as a car full of teenagers drove past, openly curious about the two tall Americans standing in the middle of the parking lot. A car door opened, and then Charlie called out over the top of the car. “Hey, you about done? We need to get out of sight. You two don’t blend in so well.”

  Jordan glanced around the cavernous parking garage. Until the teenagers, she hadn’t seen anyone else coming in or out. She also hadn’t been paying attention.

  “I’m on it,” Davis said. “Stay here, and I’ll go get us a room.”

  “What about your passport?”

  In the end, Charlie had gone inside while Jordan and Davis waited in the car with Zhen. Ten minutes later, he came back holding the keys to a suite in the Shaoguan Hotel.

  “We’re all set,” he said, handing both Jordan and Davis a key card.

  “Do we need to worry about hauling Zhen through the lobby?” she asked, conscious of how disheveled they must look. She still wore the clothes she’d purchased in Guangzhou, and they’d taken their share of abuse. Her white shirt was streaked with red clay, and there was a tear in one of her pant legs. Davis hadn’t fared much better, and Zhen’s hands were tied behind his back. “Any chance we’ll set off some hotel employee’s alarm bells?”

  Charlie gave them the once-over. “It could be a problem.”

  “What’s the layout of the lobby?” Davis asked.

  “The elevators are to the left through the door. The desk is across the lobby. To the right is a seating area.”

  “I’ve got this,” Davis said. “Give me a thirty-second head start.”

  Unsure of the plan, Jordan counted off the seconds, feeling apprehensive as she pushed through the hotel doors. She quickly realized she’d worried for nothing. Good to his word, Davis strode in through the street access, requesting assistance in finding an address and commanding the attention of everyone in proximity. His lanky carriage and easy smile offset the ugly American routine and captured the full attention of every woman in the lobby while eliciting glares from the men. No one even looked at the three of them.

  Nudging Zhen toward the bank of elevators, Jordan felt him balk and exerted pressure on his bound wrists. “Don’t even consider it.”

  Once they were headed up, she released her grip on his ties.

  “This sucks,” he said. “Why is this necessary? No way I’m going to run. I’m better off with you. The Triad will kill me if I go back there.”

  He’d said something similar to the gangsters about returning to the United States. She figured both statements were true.

  Charlie began to respond, but Jordan headed him off.

  “No more talking until we’re safe in the room.” Call her paranoid, but she didn’t want to risk someone overhearing anything they talked about. It could spell disaster if the wrong people put together what they were doing in Shaoguan.

  * * *

  The living room of the deluxe suite looked like a miniature version of the lobby. Its overstuffed furnishings included a red couch and two red chairs across from a buffet holding a flat-screen TV. Near the floor-to-ceiling windows were a desk and chair.

  Charlie swiveled the screen toward him, picked up the TV remote, and sat down at the desk. “You mind?”

  Jordan shook her head and deposited Zhen on the couch. After making a quick sweep of the rooms for cameras and listening devices, she stepped to the windows. The suite was on the seventh floor, with no balcony. In the distance, purple mountains backed a city landscape gleaming in various shades of sunset yellow. Once satisfied the room was secure, she untied Zhen’s hands.

  Rubbing his wrists, he stretched and propped his feet on the coffee table. “Any chance of getting something to eat or drink?”

  Before Jordan could answer, Davis let himself into the room. “What’d I miss?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “We were just about to order room service.” She also needed to check in with Lory. By now the PO would be aware they hadn’t gone straight to the safe house, but the more information she could give her boss when she called, the better.

  “Sounds great,” Davis said. “I’m famished.”

  They settled on a variety of dim sum, tea, and two Diet Cokes—one for Jordan and one for their prisoner. While Charlie called in the order, Jordan turned back to Zhen. She wanted some answers. Talking in front of Charlie was chancy; likely anything said would find its way back to the PO. But her need for answers outweighed the risks, and she’d already granted Davis a pass.

  “Tell us what you’re doing in China, Kia.” She went with his first name, hoping to develop rapport. “Maybe you could start by telling us how you ended up in the hands of the Triad.”

  “I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to tell you.”

  Jordan wondered what was that supposed to mean. “You’re wanted on charges of espionage. Now isn’t the time to be cagey.”

  Zhen flipped back his mop of hair. “It’s not what you think. My cousin Eddie works for the government, undercover. He asked for my help hacking into this company’s servers. It was all on the up and up. He said he’d pay me one hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Are you saying the hack was sanctioned by a government agency?” Davis asked.

  “Exactly. It was all for show. Eddie just needed the files as bait. He never intended to sell them.”

  “Did he tell you what branch of the government he worked for?” Jordan already had a good guess what his answer would be.

  “The CIA. His contact was someone at the consulate in Guangzhou.”

  The fact Eddie’d divulged his affiliation with the CIA to Zhen made Jordan suspicious. No one working for the agency was that forthright, not while they were still employed. Though, if Eddie was telling his cousin the truth, it supported the theory that the PO helped orchestrate the prisoner swap—the kid for his CIA asset. Even if Eddie was Triad, it made sense to export him in place of Zhen. Eddie likely knew more, which also made him a target.

  “Does Eddie have a last name?” Davis asked.

  “Zhen, same as me.” The kid leaned forward, elbows to knees. “Where the hell is he anyway? I haven’t seen him since we got busted.”

  Jordan skipped past his question. “Tell me what you took.”

  The kid’s eyes narrowed. Did he suspect she was holding back? Finally, he shrugged and told her what she wanted to hear.

  “They were plans for a new milita
ry weapon under development for the U.S. Navy.”

  “What was the name of the company?”

  “Quinn Industries.”

  If Zhen was telling the truth, her hunch that Quinn Industries had been cyberattacked was correct.

  “And you bought into your cousin’s bullshit?” Davis was mimicking Zhen’s posture. It was an interrogator’s technique designed to put the subject at ease, given you asked the right question.

  “Eddie’s my cousin.” Zhen sounded defensive. “I didn’t think he was doing anything illegal, if that’s what you mean. I still don’t.”

  Jordan leaned forward, too. “Eddie lied, Kia. The CIA would never sanction this type of bluff.”

  At least that’s what she wanted to believe. She looked at Charlie to gauge his reaction. He appeared to be watching TV.

  Zhen’s face contorted in anger. “You’re wrong. Eddie’s mission was to infiltrate the Triad and ID the buyer. The Chinese respect a good hacker. He was forced to produce the goods. The plans were never supposed to leave his hands.”

  “So what happened?” Davis asked.

  “Once I delivered the plans to Eddie, he told me I was done. He said he was going to take things from there, and I could expect payment in a couple of weeks. The next thing I know, my name is on the top of the Feds’ Most Wanted List. Eddie said it was all a mistake. He told me to lay low, that he’d straighten things out. Then he showed up, saying we need to get out of the country. It was supposed to be temporary. He said someone was onto him, and the only way to salvage the op was to pretend to go through with the sale.”

  “And that didn’t seem sketchy to you?”

  “I trusted my cousin,” he reiterated. “I still do. Eddie’s a brave dude. I’ll admit I had reservations about messing with the Triad, but not Eddie.”

  “Did you ever meet his CIA handler?” Davis asked.

  “Hell, no! That was top secret shit. The only person I ever met was Ping Mu. He was the buyer. To be honest, I was starting to think Eddie was still working his way up the Triad food chain.”

  Jordan hated to break it to Zhen, but it sounded to her like Eddie was just out for a big score.

  Davis scooted closer to the edge of his seat. “He had the plans, so why bring you to China?”

  If looks could label you “idiot,” Davis would be a drooling mass of Jell-O.

  “It was just as dangerous at home. What do you think would have happened if I’d been picked up in the States? I would’ve been screwed, and it would’ve blown Eddie’s whole op. Besides, he needed me to tweak the plans.”

  That caught Jordan’s attention. “What do you mean?”

  “The guidance system specs totally sucked. The U.S. government has been telling everyone they were ready to roll out the gun this year, but that’s a load of crap. Eddie asked me if I could come up with a fix.” Zhen spoke as if he’d been asked to tweak his cousin’s high school science project.

  “Were you able to fix it?” she asked.

  “Frickin’ A I did. It’s not perfect. The portable power system still has flaws. It works great for one firing. After that it has to be recharged or needs to be hooked up to some type of continuous power source.”

  Davis suddenly straightened. “Hold on a minute. What kind of weapon are we talking about?”

  She and Zhen looked at each other, then answered in unison. “A land-based railgun.”

  Chapter 24

  At the word railgun, Charlie’s head came around. “What did you say?”

  Davis rolled his eyes and laughed. “Let’s get real.”

  “It’s no joke,” Zhen said.

  “It’s bullshit!” Davis said. “You’re talking about a fantasy weapon the Navy’s been working on since Arnold played the Terminator, possibly longer. In all that time, they’ve never succeeded in building any power source small enough to be mobile.”

  “Up until now,” Jordan said. She was convinced Zhen was telling the truth. “If we’re to believe Zhen—and I do—that particular problem’s been solved.”

  Davis stared at her for a moment. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  Jordan nodded, then turned back to the kid. He was still a teenager. Eighteen years old, happy to make a boatload of money, proud of the work he’d accomplished, and convinced he’d been issued a license to hack by the U.S. government. How could someone as obviously smart as this kid be so dumb?

  Davis was back nose-to-nose with Zhen. “Explain this weapon to me.”

  “You want the technical description?”

  “I’ll settle for layman’s terms.”

  “Can I see your computer?”

  Davis handed him Charlie’s laptop. Zhen powered it up, typed a few keystrokes, then rotated the screen back around. A picture of a railgun mounted on the back of a large transport truck filled the monitor.

  “Basically the gun has three parts. The armature, that’s the part here that looks like a cannon.” Zhen used the cursor to point. “It sits on a rail system mounted to the back of a transport truck. This thing that looks like a trunk-bed cargo box is called the compulsator. Basically it’s a battery that stores up to a ten-megajoule charge.”

  “What’s a megajoule?” Charlie’s voice behind her startled Jordan. He’d gotten out of the desk chair and was squinting at the photo.

  “It’s a measure of energy that puts out a charge with a force equivalent to a one-ton truck traveling at 160 miles per hour hitting a brick wall.” The more Zhen talked, the more animated he became. “When the electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, is released from the compulsator, it travels around the rails creating a magnetic field that slides the armature forward and launches the projectile.”

  Charlie looked impressed. “That must pack one hell of a punch.”

  “Hell, yeah,” Zhen said. “This model fires at Mach 7.5. We’re talking Star Trek. The actual speed depends on temperature and atmospheric conditions, but basically the bullet it shoots is moving at 5,300 miles per hour and hits the freakin’ target at Mach 5. There’s so much kinetic force behind it that the projectile starts to burn, coming apart on impact.” To demonstrate, he slammed his right fist into his open left hand and then flung open his hands.

  That would explain the shrapnel she’d found buried in the side of the plane. “How big are these bullets you’re talking about?”

  “Maybe seven pounds.”

  “That’s all?” Charlie said.

  Davis reached over and tapped the picture of the gun, causing the plasma screen to distort. “How far can it shoot?”

  Jordan had read enough about railguns to know the answer, but she let Zhen field the question.

  “According to the specs, two hundred nautical miles. It shoots up into the exo-atmosphere, like five hundred thousand feet into space, before gravity pulls it back to Earth. It’s cutting-edge technology.”

  Davis sat back in his chair looking less than convinced. “I’ll admit, it sounds great in theory, but how accurate can it be?”

  “It’s dead on, dude. The bullets use an internal guidance system. Once you lock in the preprogrammed GPS coordinates—”

  “Wait a minute,” Jordan said, cutting him off. “Are you saying that once the projectile’s launched, you can’t alter its course?”

  “Not by a command system. They haven’t made one yet that can take the heat. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take it over.”

  The food arrived before anyone could ask him to expound. Once it was doled out, Jordan steered things back to the subject of Eddie.

  “Tell us about the people Eddie was looking to impress.”

  “I told you, the only guy I met was Ping.”

  “He never talked about anyone else?”

  “I heard him refer to the dragon a few times.”

  “That’s the name used for the head of the Triad,” Charlie said. Jordan swiveled toward him. He was back sitting behind the desk with his plate of food in front of him. “Last year, the dragon was named one of the fifty most influential
men in China by China Digest.”

  Jordan turned back to Zhen. “Are you sure Eddie didn’t know who he was?”

  “That was the whole point of the op. Eddie was supposed to find out who this dragon dude was. He said once he learned the dragon’s identity, the CIA would have an inroad to the highest branches of the Chinese government.”

  “What did he mean by that?” Davis asked.

  “How should I know? Eddie was pretty closed-mouth. All I know is this dragon was somebody powerful.”

  Charlie cleared his throat. “If Eddie was an NOC, his mark would have to be someone high up in the Central Military Commission or Communist Party government. Many Guangdong businessmen are also government officials.”

  “Ping?” Jordan asked.

  Charlie shrugged. “Anyone making money in China has his hand around somebody’s balls.”

  Since the inception of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anticorruption campaign, over nine hundred senior Communist Party officials had been accused of corruption. Jordan wondered if Eddie had tumbled upon someone not yet exposed.

  “Are you thinking he got too close?” Davis asked, echoing her thoughts.

  “It’s possible.” Charlie picked up his chopsticks. “In China, a little knowledge makes you both valuable and dangerous.”

  “It’s a good reason to arrange an extraction,” Davis said.

  “What’s a NOC?” asked Zhen.

  “It’s what they call a CIA agent with a nonofficial cover,” Jordan said. “Basically, it means that if the agent gets caught spying, the United States government will disavow him and his actions.”

  Zhen sat bolt upright on the edge of the couch. “Hold on, dudette. That means they would disavow me, too.”

  “Unfortunately, Zhen,” she said, “you were never protected.”

  The kid’s face distorted in anger. “There’s no frickin’ way Eddie would just leave me here.”

  Jordan smiled sympathetically. “Unless he wasn’t given a choice.”

  As the realization of his predicament sank in, the fear grew in Zhen’s eyes. “You have to help me. I want to make a deal.”